Galilee

Regarding the Swim That Shook The World, we have one Republican congressman, a Rep. Jeff Denham of California, claiming that he and his wife were fully clothed when they plunged into one of the holiest bodies of water in the world during a drinking party. Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) - that's right, son of Dan “I wish I knew Latin so I could talk to the Latin Americans” Quayle - swears he was in the water no longer than 30 seconds, which is like a woman claiming she got only a little bit pregnant.

Skiing in the Golan, growing oranges and grapes in the Galilee, scuba diving in Eilat, slipping notes between the stones of the Western Wall. Donna Klein Jewish Academy lower school students got a look at modern day Israel recently from an interactive exhibit created by the day school's 6th graders. More than 80 students separated into teams to create 10 exhibits depicting life in Israel, in preparation for their 8th grade trip in two years. Each exhibit had detailed information and a code that students could read with their smartphones and match with a destination on a passport.

There was a map of the Holy Land on the front flap of my mother's Bible. It was colored in pale pinks and blues and it showed Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Galilee and the Jordan River. The names told the story of the life of Jesus Christ, but to me the map made it real. Older now, I have graduated from dreaming over maps to visiting places embedded in my consciousness, above all Israel. It is just a sliver of land about the size of New Jersey but deep in terms of time. I had only a week to devote to the trip, so I had to be selective.

During the Winter Session of its 57th Annual Board of Trustees Meetings, Bar-Ilan University laid a cornerstone for the permanent campus of its medical school — the Faculty of Medicine in the Galilee — in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar and other government officials. The Faculty of Medicine's permanent campus, to be constructed in the historic city of Safed, will house a medical research triplex, medical training complex, integrative research centers and disease-based centers, a student and community services complex, a library, sports center and medical simulation center, 45 labs equipped with state-of-the-art research instrumentation and student and faculty residences.

Lin-Dai Quant worked for more than a year in a clothing shop in the Dadeland Mall, saving her dollars and sacrificing pleasure for spiritual reward later in the Holy Land. At daybreak Friday, the Miami teenager stood on the hillside where Jesus Christ preached 2,000 years ago of how blessed are the humble ones. She watched the rays of the meek morning sun dance on the Sea of Galilee where Christ is believed to have walked on water. As she waited with tens of thousands of Catholics for Pope John Paul II to lead a memorable Mass, she joined in singing Pilgrims to Galilee: I Will See You There.

During the Winter Session of its 57th Annual Board of Trustees Meetings, Bar-Ilan University laid a cornerstone for the permanent campus of its medical school — the Faculty of Medicine in the Galilee — in the presence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar and other government officials. The Faculty of Medicine's permanent campus, to be constructed in the historic city of Safed, will house a medical research triplex, medical training complex, integrative research centers and disease-based centers, a student and community services complex, a library, sports center and medical simulation center, 45 labs equipped with state-of-the-art research instrumentation and student and faculty residences.

Archaeologists in Israel have uncovered in Ohalo, on the southwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, remnants of what appears to have been a fishing village approximately 19,000 years ago. The area was probably home to a group of Stone Age inhabitants who lived from hunting and fishing, as evidenced by the large quantity of fish bones found at the site. The site was uncovered because of the drastic decrease in the water level of the lake. This has led to several other important archaeological discoveries over the last few years, including a large fishing boat believed to date back to the time of Jesus, some 2,000 years ago. Archeologists of the Antiquities Authority and Haifa`s Prehistoric Museum, who excavated the site, said that Ohalo is the largest site of its kind ever discovered, spreading over several hundred square yards.

By DON CRINKLAW Special to the Sun-Sentinel and Don Crinklaw is a free-lance author based in Hollywood, May 31, 1998

GALILEE. Clive Barker. HarperCollins. $26. 582 pp. Clive Barker's hyper-manic sprawl of a novel begins with the narrator, one Edmund Barbaross, trying to write a book. The details are just right: Edmund is alone in a little room, frowning at a desktop stocked with blank paper, a cupful of pens and a big bottle of warm gin. Then the odd stuff starts, the weird stuff that makes Barker a best-selling master of what aficionados call "dark fantasy." We learn that Edmund's house on the North Carolina coast was built by Thomas Jefferson, who was in love with a gorgeous black woman named Cesaria.

I am reading about the Gaza evacuations and the grief the families are enduring. As a granddaughter of a Syrian who had to leave his village in 1967 only to die in a refugee camp, I am pondering this. Please open a history book, and see how history keeps on repeating itself, and that bad only brings bad home to you. My grandfather and his entire village had to leave everything behind. They got some pots and pans and mattresses they threw onto their pick-up truck. The village, Ain-Fit, is grazed down now. People still go there for weekend outings to look down onto the Sea of Galilee.

Asked about the relative tameness of the Jesus Seminar's newest rulings, chairman Stephen Patterson just smiled Saturday. "At the start, critical biblical scholarship sounded wacky to most people," Patterson said after the seminar's final session in Miami Lakes. "Now, the views aren't shocking anymore." Not that the conference, which is not affiliated with any religious denomination, didn't draw interest. More than a hundred scholars, clergy and laity attended the four days of lectures and discussions, from 22 states, Canada, Costa Rica and the United Kingdom.

Regarding the Swim That Shook The World, we have one Republican congressman, a Rep. Jeff Denham of California, claiming that he and his wife were fully clothed when they plunged into one of the holiest bodies of water in the world during a drinking party. Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) - that's right, son of Dan “I wish I knew Latin so I could talk to the Latin Americans” Quayle - swears he was in the water no longer than 30 seconds, which is like a woman claiming she got only a little bit pregnant.

There was a map of the Holy Land on the front flap of my mother's Bible. It was colored in pale pinks and blues and it showed Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Galilee and the Jordan River. The names told the story of the life of Jesus Christ, but to me the map made it real. Older now, I have graduated from dreaming over maps to visiting places embedded in my consciousness, above all Israel. It is just a sliver of land about the size of New Jersey but deep in terms of time. I had only a week to devote to the trip, so I had to be selective.

Faith-based motor coach tours can take you a day's drive or to the ends of the earth. Here's a sampling. Most prices below are 2007 rates that are almost guaranteed to change, considering rising costs and the plummeting value of the dollar. Several operators are still working out the numbers for 2008. All are per person, double. Rates include all land/cruise or land/air lodging and transportation within the destination, many meals, English-speaking guide and admission fees. Round-trip air between home and the destination is additional unless otherwise stated.

Asked about the relative tameness of the Jesus Seminar's newest rulings, chairman Stephen Patterson just smiled Saturday. "At the start, critical biblical scholarship sounded wacky to most people," Patterson said after the seminar's final session in Miami Lakes. "Now, the views aren't shocking anymore." Not that the conference, which is not affiliated with any religious denomination, didn't draw interest. More than a hundred scholars, clergy and laity attended the four days of lectures and discussions, from 22 states, Canada, Costa Rica and the United Kingdom.

Back from a summer trip to Israel, students at the Weinbaum Yeshiva High School returned to bathe their school in blue-and-white flags. They also put up a banner in the school saying, in Hebrew, "Like One Person With One Heart." And photos of 10 fallen Israeli soldiers on a wall, painted to evoke Jerusalem's Western Wall. Their trip coincided with a nation fending off thousands of rockets from militants in Lebanon. Rosh Hashana, starting at sundown today, will be different for them. "Usually on Rosh Hashana, I pray for health and peace for everyone," said Jackie Itzkowitz, 16, a member at Chabad of Boynton Beach.

Madman. Tracy Groot. Moody Publishers. $12.99. 316 pp. By now Tracy Groot is well settled into a subset of fiction best described as fictionalized Christian myth. The genre first hit its stride with Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur. Groot gained a loyal following with her first two books, The Brother's Keeper, about Christ's brother, James, and its tacit sequel, Stones of My Accusers, set shortly after the crucifixion. Her third novel, Madman, is a fleshing out of the miracle of the Gerasene demoniac, described in the gospels of Mark and Luke.

HOLLYWOOD -- The seventh annual Hasidic Purim Festival, sponsored by Chabad of South Broward, will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday at the Young Circle bandshell. Organizers say the event, which usually draws 5,000 people, is the biggest of its kind in Florida. Featured will be a live band, games, Hasidic dancing and gifts for children, who are asked to come in holiday costumes. The Year of the Child will be the theme for this year`s festival. Purim, which starts at sundown on Monday, celebrates the escape of the Jews from an attempt to exterminate them in ancient Persia.

Despite its timely story and numerous awards (including an International Federation of Film Critics award at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival), Michel Khleifi`s Wedding in Galilee is a specialty film for the connoisseur atuned to intimate cultural affairs. While the broadest nature of the film concerns the headline issues of Arabs and their confrontations with troops on the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the plot is decidedly more poignant and geared to a personal level. The effect of this "inside look" at an Arab wedding ceremony during curfew and the Israeli officials who were "required" to be invited, however, is slow going.

I am reading about the Gaza evacuations and the grief the families are enduring. As a granddaughter of a Syrian who had to leave his village in 1967 only to die in a refugee camp, I am pondering this. Please open a history book, and see how history keeps on repeating itself, and that bad only brings bad home to you. My grandfather and his entire village had to leave everything behind. They got some pots and pans and mattresses they threw onto their pick-up truck. The village, Ain-Fit, is grazed down now. People still go there for weekend outings to look down onto the Sea of Galilee.

Rami Zur recognizes it's a difficult concept for people to grasp. You know, no man can serve two masters. Still, one of the world's best flat-water kayakers wants you to understand something: Just because he competed for Israel at the 2000 Olympics doesn't make him any less loyal to the team he will represent this August at the Athens Games. He was, after all, born in Berkeley, Calif., 27 years ago. So what if his parents moved with him back to Israel when he was 3 weeks old? "Let me ask you this: Who do you love more, your mother or your father?"